No, I’m not talking about the letdown of losing a game in extra innings after staging a dramatic ninth-inning rally from a 4-0 deficit.

No, this is about the season-ending injury to their shortstop and captain, Derek Jeter, and what his loss will mean to his team. Moving to his left to field a grounder in the 12th inning, Jeter toppled to the ground. With the ball in his glove and while lying on the infield dirt, he still tried to push the ball to second base. He didn’t get up. His left ankle had fractured.

Yankee Stadium went silent as team trainers and manager Joe Girardi hustled onto the field.

“When Derek Jeter needs help to get off the field, you know it’s bad,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said.

You also know it’s bad when Girardi opens his postgame news conference by saying, “It won’t jeopardize his career.”

The Yankees said the fracture, located in the upper part of Jeter’s left foot, will need at least three months to heal. Surgery had not been discussed though Girardi said more tests likely would be needed. Jeter had X-rays at the stadium and delivered the bad news in a room with several Yankees and baseball officials, including Cashman and Joe Torre.

Jeter already was dealing with a sore left foot after fouling off a pitch in the Division Series as well as a sore left leg. Cashman admitted he thinks previous ailments might have contributed to the fracture. “He said he heard something pop,” Cashman said.

Most of the Yankees had cleared out of the clubhouse when an attendant pulled a pair of jeans out of Jeter’s locker and took them to an area off-limits to the media. Jeter would not be talking on this night.

“He had no reaction at all,” Cashman said of Jeter’s response when told he would not be playing in Game 2 Sunday afternoon or the rest of this series.

The injury to the 38-year-old Jeter, baseball’s most recognizable and respected player, made for a sad ending to a stretch of dramatic comebacks and fantastic finishes in the first eight days of the postseason.

But after regaining the momentum, the Tigers present a challenge the Yankees would have trouble handling even with Jeter. When Ichiro Suzuki and Raul Ibanez hit two-run homers off slumping closer Jose Valverde to send the game to extra innings, the Yankees seemed destined for victory.

But the Tigers showed they can come back, too. Delmon Young’s one-out double broke the 4-4 tie and Andy Dirks’ infield single added an insurance run. Meanwhile, the Tigers held the Yankees scoreless after Valverde’s departure.

Now they have a 1-0 lead and the comfort of knowing their ace, Justin Verlander, will be able to make two starts.

“We have been taking punches all year,” manager Jim Leyland said. “We took a right cross in the ninth inning but survived it.”

Valverde, however, might have lost his job after his second blown save in his past two outings. “We are going to put our heads together and we’ll talk with him,” Leyland said. Translation: Octavio Dotel and Joaquin Benoit, prepare to work the ninth inning.

For Girardi, Jeter’s injury was “a flashback” to Kansas City in early May when their all-time great closer, Mariano Rivera, blew out his right knee shagging flies in batting practice.

“Just like Mo said, we have to move on,” Girardi said. “Some people left us for dead when Mo went down. Here we are in the ALCS. Jeet’s going to tell us, ‘Let’s go.’ ”

To have any shot, the rest of the Yankees will have to show the toughness of their captain.

“Jeet has always been as tough as a player as I have ever been around,” Girardi said. “Even when I tried to carry him in, he said, ‘No. Do not carry me.’ ”

But Jeter did not leave the field on his own power and he had to be lifted down the dugout steps. The Yankees’ season likely went with him.